NewRoFoundation

For children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), spending lots of time watching television is not a good idea. Too much screen time can exacerbate the symptoms of the condition, according to the findings junior Sabrina Lin reached in her research project.

Lin analyzed responses to a survey filled out by parents of children with ADHD. Surveying the 83 responses to the survey, supplied by her mentor, Dr. Ming Kuo of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Lin found that in comparison to physical activities such as sports or structured play time, which help alleviate the symptoms, sedentary activities made them worse.

“Television is definitely one of the more detrimental ones and I think it’s because it’s one of the more stationary ones,” she said. “Based on these results, parents should try to limit the amount of screen time their ADHD children are exposed to so that their symptoms are minimized.”

Lin plans to pursue a career in biology, perhaps pediatrics. She would also like to expand on her current study to get a better idea of how the amount of time spent watching television affects the children, and whether content they watch makes a difference.

Lin began the research because she has an interest in neurological disorders. She found that the COVID era is a good time to study ADHD, she said.

“It’s important to study it,” she said, “especially since we are now all cooped up in our homes and it’s a lot harder to minimize the symptoms.”